WSJ: About those Healthcare.gov fixes …

posted at 2:01 pm on December 14, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

The Obama administration insisted that they would have a working web portal for ObamaCare by October 1st, but they couldn’t even get people within a dozen clicks of determining their eligibility. Kathleen Sebelius tried pretending that all was well more than once in live events, only to have the website crash in her presence. After that, the White House appointed Jeff Zients as an interim grand poobah for all things related to HealthCare.gov, and promised a “fully functional” web portal by December 1. That promise, however, got whittled down to delivering a “significantly different user experience” by Sebelius as the deadline approached.

Did Sebelius manage to deliver even that much? Not really, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning, and it’s going to get a lot worse when people who think they have coverage try using it in January:

Insurers and federal officials sifting through insurance applications under the health-care law have identified a raft of errors, including missing customers and inaccurate eligibility determinations that mean people may be enrolled in the wrong coverage. …

In some cases described by a state official with knowledge of the matter, legal immigrants who aren’t yet eligible for Medicaid in Illinois—it takes five years of residence to join the state-run programs for low-income people—were nevertheless told they would be enrolled.

The risk that consumers could remain in limbo as the health law’s coverage expansion begins in January has been a continual political threat to the Obama administration, which has addressed flaws—ranging from a malfunctioning website to the cancellation of health policies that don’t meet the law’s requirements—with a patchwork of last-minute fixes.

The White House wants insurers to establish a grace period after January 1 for payments of premiums. Insurers aren’t too keen on the idea, and point out that premium payments aren’t really the big issue anyway:

But insurance-industry executives warn that some of these data problems will only emerge once customers begin seeking care in January at physicians’ offices, pharmacies and hospitals. The result could be bureaucratic chaos as doctors and patients storm insurers’ phone banks and federal officials work to clean up the inaccuracies.

There will be “eligibles lost in the ether,” said Mark Bertolini, chief executive of Aetna Inc.,in an interview. In some cases, children who are meant to be enrolled in their parents plans aren’t listed there, he said.

The Healthcare.gov web portal apparently chokes on family coverage, despite that being a decades-long industry practice. A “glitch” in the system somehow splits them off from their parents’ households and treats them like adults with no income, pushing them into Medicaid.

The news is just as bad if you were an early adopter. You may not know it until you try to use your benefits, but you have to delete your account and start over if you enrolled before December 1:

Administration officials urged customers to contact the companies they believe will cover them to verify their enrollment, or call state Medicaid agencies to confirm that they are in fact eligible for those programs. People who believe they have received inaccurate eligibility determinations can appeal the decisions, HHS officials have said.

To correct inaccuracies, some people may have to delete accounts and start over now that some glitches have been repaired, people familiar with the matter said.

Sebelius promised us “a significantly different user experience.” Sounds like deja vu all over again instead.

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Even if an insurer will pay a doctor who’s not in the network-they are going to end up paying them the “lower rates” that the doctor said he would not take-the reason that the doctor was not in the network in the first place.

For a holiday treat in the absurd try for a minute to imagine the msms and the Demorat’s reaction to all of this had GWB tried to do this!!!! OMG! It would have been the I word daily and nightly. “Impeach the SOB”! “He is so stupid that he couldn’t even design a simple website”. “He is so dumb that he did not even bother to check in with his team that was working on HIS program to see how they were coming along’. “This is what you get when the SCOTUS picks our president”.
There would not be one single other issue that would cross the msm desks or front pages. This would have to be resolved by fiat and a hanging before they could move on.

In some cases described by a state official with knowledge of the matter, legal immigrants who aren’t yet eligible for Medicaid in Illinois—it takes five years of residence to join the state-run programs for low-income people—were nevertheless told they would be enrolled

Even if an insurer will pay a doctor who’s not in the network-they are going to end up paying them the “lower rates” that the doctor said he would not take-the reason that the doctor was not in the network in the first place.

What a mess.

gerrym51 on December 14, 2013 at 2:33 PM

I’m waiting for Sebelius to violate the Thirteenth Amendment and order doctors to treat patients with Obamacare coverage.

Hospitals have to take anyone who walks into the ER because the hospitals get federal funding.

Doctors can choose what insurance coverage they accept. I recall sitting in a doctor’s office several years ago while te receptionist took info over the phone from a new patient. When she apparently hear the carrier, she said, “The doctor doesn’t take HMO.” End of conversation.

Folks, this is not by accident. It is the expedited route to single payer. What you will hear shortly is that it’s such a mess that the only solution is to declare everyone covered for everything. And, anyone who opposes making sure people can get “affordable quality health care” is a Big Meany Republican.

My suspicion is that one the Obamanauts realized that their promise of a functioning system was not going to be met, they decided to make lemonade from the lemons. Hence, get everything totally bolluxed up, and then do what Dems do whenever their govt-based schemes screw things up: demand more govt.

All we need, at this point, are pool reporters to give us the Daily Policy Pronouncements (DPP) as spoken by Jay Carney.
Perhaps a DPP-Channel on cable so that we can get the day’s tasks straight from the horse’s “mouth” – that way the poor overworked minions of the press could just set their DVR and spare Jay having to acknowledge their presence.
Orwell will be so proud.

This is the Titanic with no life boats at all. Unfortunately. when the final crash comes in a few months the private insurance market will have been completely destroyed and no one has a credible plan on how to recover. I know the Dems dream of single payer coming to the rescue but such a plan would take years to implement and the final result would be worse than those systems existing in countries with much smaller populations.

The sickest thing of all in regard to Obamacare is that the WOMEN of this nation sold out their entire families as well as their childrens’ futures so they can worship at the alter of their PC god.
You can feel the real God’s favor being lifted from this country, which is what we deserve.

In some cases described by a state official with knowledge of the matter, legal immigrants who aren’t yet eligible for Medicaid in Illinois—it takes five years of residence to join the state-run programs for low-income people—were nevertheless told they would be enrolled.

The “translator” fiasco at the Mandela memorial service, the lack of security at same, the laughable, total, and complete incompetence of the Obamacare rollout, the Syria foreign policy catastrophe, the joke of the deal with Iran.

I think that he’s teetering on the brink of an attempt at being a genuine dictator.
Narcissists don’t like being rejected.
And if he starts feeling threatened by a Republican takeover in 2014, he just might go full Mussolini on us.
Look for him to decree some special executive powers to deal with the looming healthcare crisis that he created.

I’m sure all the problems are fixed now – Obama is leaving on a 17-day vacation to Hawaii. He wouldn’t just leave town for a holiday if it weren’t fixed, would he?

~~~~~~~~~

The website and info-to-insurers problems are small potatoes. As small businesses and professional practices begin to find out they cannot keep their coverage either, and larger employers do the math and figure it will be cheaper to pay the fines and end coverage for their employees, it will really hit the fan in the 4th Quarter of the year.

Obama thought he was slick in delaying the mandate date until after the midterms, but notifications for insurance coverage always go out at least 30 days before they take effect, so everyone will know what is happening anyway.

I don’t know if anyone else sees where this trainwreck of a rollout will end but I’m betting that it is a Trojan horse for a slick, well-thought out single-payer system that is in fact where all the money and time have been spent by this administration. Collapse the whole healthcare system with Obamacare and then put forward a single-payer system that looks wonderful in comparison….(think “at least your kids/grandma/breast cancer will be covered”)but the Republican leadership is acting in their usual doltish manner, content thinking that Obamacare will implode in their favor (and all they have to do is sit on their hands and let it) instead of introducing a better alternative and doing it damn quick…….I can see the smug asshats like McLame and the other rino repub dildos thinking “they got this”, turn to stunned expressions of befuddlement when the single-payer with a giant push by the MSM, is unleashed….
Bu..Bu…But!…
To prove it, all you have to do is number the times the Republican leadership has done something smart in the last…..5….10…20 years. Like the nuclear option in the senate…what incredible buffoons!!!

I don’t think Sebelius lied. Before you couldn’t get through the mess before it crapped out. Now you can apparently get through, but you have no guarantee that you actually have insurance. That’s a different experience. Not a good one, and maybe even worse than before, but definitely different. Mission Accomplished.

The failures of the healthcare.gov web site were highly visible on the front end, and they were desperate to fix them. It was completely predictable that they would have no time to worry about what wasn’t immediately visible. IOW, it was absolutely obvious that they would waste no time fixing the backend. It’s the equivalent of shoving your junk in the closet so you can claim you cleaned your room.

*A lie in itself: it should have been healthinsuranceexchange.gov. The site has nothing to do with actual health care.